Jessie on the Rocks

Week 30 - The Mango Margarita I moved to Florida just over 5 years ago.  You would think the hardest part of leaving home to venture out into the world would be leaving my family behind.  Turns out they visit a lot, so the actual worst thing...leaving my grocery store behind.  In theory I should have accepted this change by now and moved on, but days like today bring all the grocery store separation issues right back to the surface!  I kid, I kid, kind of.  I grew up with Wegmans as my local grocery store.  To go here is not to shop, but to experience a whole event.  You grab coffee, maybe some lunch, see friends from years past, peruse an entire department devoted to cheese and oh yeah, pick up some groceries too.  I know, I sound like such an elitist right now.  I admit it, but even all these years later, I just can't accept new grocery stores into my life lol!! I now live where Publix is my most convenient grocery store.  I was actually surprised, to some degree, at the

Week 29 - The Peach Margarita Happy National Tequila Day!!  In honor of the liquor that has been such a big part of my year, I'm kicking back with my week 29 drink - The Peach Margarita! This drink has been on my radar for quite a while.  I love peaches and I was really excited to give this a try.  The drink was easy to put together.  It called for peach schnapps and orange juice in addition to the usual ingredients.  I chopped up a peach and added all the ingredients to the blender.  To my surprise, it all blended together beautifully.  I used sugar on the rim and garnished with a a simple lime wedge- I actually had to use the lime bacuse I accidentally cut up all the peach for the drink- ugh!  Sometimes I just can't handle my own stupidity:) However, the lime looked great so, no harm, no foul! I worried this drink might be too sweet, but it was perfect.  I loved both the taste and look of this drink.  Two thumbs up.  I highly recommend. Lesson Learned - It's tot

Week 28 - The Watermelon Margarita I was discouraged after last week's unfortunate drink.  It was a big disappointment and looked awful.  I needed to shake off last week's bad luck and try again.  This week's drink of choice is The Watermelon Margarita.  It's perfect for the hot summer days that are upon us.  It looked like a fun and relatively easy drink to put together. This drink called for Watermelon Schnapps.  While I generally like watermelon, it's never something I seek out.  I find it to be just "okay" so I was a little hesitant going into this drink, but I was pleasantly surprised.  I chose to make the drink over ice as opposed to in the blender.  The taste was quite good.  It was just enough sweetness and the watermelon flavor was not overwhelming as I feared.  I did deviate from the recipe just a bit by adding a few pieces of frozen cut up watermelon to the drink instead of ice cubes.  I thought it would be a fun twist to the drink.  I

Week 27 - The Dirty Margarita Epic fail.  That's the only way to describe this week's drink.  I had a good long streak of steady drink making improvement going, until today:)  I decided to make the week 27 drink The Dirty Margarita.  This was a drink that used ingredients I already had around the house, so I thought it would be easy peasy.  I was wrong. In addition to tequila, simple syrup and lime juice, this drink has a number of other ingredients.  It seems to be the garbage can drink for all things laying around the house.  It includes Blue Curacao, Midori and fruit.  The recipe leaves what fruit up to you.  It says whatever you have laying around.  In my case, I had, Strawberries, blueberries and oranges, so that is what I used.  The prep of the drink went fine.  In fact, my hopes were pretty high going into this drink.  I put everything into the blender and turned it on.  As soon as it started to mix, it became the worst color of brown that you have ever seen.  I

Week 26 - The Lemon Meringue Margarita This week's drink is The Lemon Meringue Margarita.  To be honest, I was a little skeptical of this drink for two reasons.  The first, I was going to have to learn to spell Meringue - it's a shockingly hard word to spell! The second and more important hang up with this drink, is the egg white in the drink.  It just seemed weird and a little unnatural.  The finished product looked really pretty though, so I decided to go for it. There was a bit of prep for this drink.  In addition to the usual ingredients, I had to separate an egg white from an egg.  I'm sure many people will read this and think this is easy, but my idea of using my kitchen is for a place to store my plates.  Needless to say, my culinary abilities lack in pretty much all areas.  However, I did manage to figure out how to separate the egg white and added it to the drink.  Victory! Instead of salt or regular sugar for the rim, this drink called for powdere

Week 25 - The Chambord Margarita Happy Fourth of July!  I usually spend our nation's birthday with friends and family, but this year it didn't work out, so I am doing the next best thing, spending it making margarita's and writing this blog.  All in all, not a terrible way to spend a day off! This week's drink of choice is the Chambord Margarita.  I had never heard of Chambord until a week ago.  I actually had to Google it to find out what it was all about. Turns out, it's a raspberry liquor.  Sounds good to me!  It also comes in the most adorable bottle.  Who wouldn't want to give this a try? In addition to trying a new liquor, my friend @redwinesippycup, otherwise known as my pal Amy, told me about Glacio Ice mold Makers.  This ice maker makes perfectly clear ice cubes.   At first I thought she was crazy, but sure enough, it was legit and totally incredible!  I am now the proud owner of a sphere and a square Glacio ice cube maker!  They aren